And the armed young males who formed a rough honor guard for Delp their captain had something of the same chill in their manner — not toward Syranax, but toward his son, the heir apparent on whom the admiral leaned. Their spears, rakes, tomahawks, and wood-bayoneted blowguns were held in a gesture of total respect: nevertheless, the weapons were held.

Wace thought that Van Rijn’s outsize nose must have an abnormal keenness for discord. Only now did he himself sense the tension on which his boss had obviously been counting.

Syranax cleared his throat, blinked, and pointed his muzzle at the humans. “Which one of you is captain?” he asked. It was still a deep voice, but it no longer came from the bottom of the lungs, and there was a mucous rattle in it.

Wace stepped forward. His answer was the one Van Rijn had, hastily and without bothering to explain, commanded that he give: “The other male is our leader, sir. But he does not speak your language very well as yet. I myself still have trouble with it, so we” must use this Lannach’ho prisoner to interpret.”

T’heonax scrowled. “How should he know what you want to say to us?”

“He has been teaching us your language,” said Wace. “As you know, sir, foreign tongues are his main task in life. Because of this natural ability, as well as his special experience with us, he will often be able to guess what we may be trying to say when we search for a word.”

“That sounds reasonable.” Syranax’s gray head wove about. “Yes.”

“I wonder!” T’heonax gave Delp an ugly look. It was returned in spades.

“So! By damn, now I talk.” Van Rijn rolled forward. “My good friend… um… er… pokker, what is the word? — my admiral, we, ahem, we talk-um like good brothers — good brothers, is that how I say-um, Tolk?—”

Wace winced. Despite what Sandra had whispered to him, as they were being hustled here to receive the visitors, he found it hard to believe that so ludicrous an accent and grammar were faked.

And why?

Syranax stirred impatiently. “It may be best if we talked through your companion,” he suggested.

“Bilge and barnacles!” shouted Van Rijn. “Him? No, no, me talkum talky-talk self. Straight, like, um, er, what-is-your-title. We talk-um like brothers, ha?”

Syranax sighed. But it did not occur to him to overrule the human. An alien aristocrat was still an aristocrat, in the eyes of this caste-ridden society, and as such might surely claim the right to speak for himself.

“I would have visited you before,” said the admiral, “but you could not have conversed with me, and there was so much else to do. As they grow more desperate, the Lannach’honai become more dangerous in their raids and ambushes. Not a day goes by that we do not have at least a minor battle.”

“Hm-m-m?” Van Rijn counted off the declension-comparison on his fingers. “Xammagapai… let me see, xammagan, xammagai… oh, yes. A small fight! I make-um see no fights, old admiral — I mean, honored admiral.”

T’heonax bristled. “Watch your tongue, Eart’ho!” he clipped. He had been over frequently to stare at the prisoners, and their sequestered possessions were in his keeping. Little awe remained — but then, Wace decided, T’heonax was not capable of admitting that a being could possibly exist in any way superior to T’heonax.

“And yours, son,” murmured Syranax. To Van Rijn: “Oh, they would scarcely venture this far out. I mean our positions on the mainland are constantly harassed.”

“Yes,” nodded the Terrestrial, rather blankly.

Syranax lay down on the deck in an easy lion-pose. T’heonax remained standing, taut in Delp’s presence. “I have, of course, been getting reports about you,” went on the admiral. “They are, ah, remarkable. Yes, remarkable. It’s alleged you came from the stars.”

“Stars, yes!” Van Rijn’s head bobbed with imbecilic eagerness. “We from stars. Far far away.”

“Is it true also that your people have established an outpost on the other shore of The Ocean?”

Van Rijn went into a huddle with Tolk. The Lannacha put the question into childish words. After several explanations, Van Rijn beamed. “Yes, yes, we from across Ocean. Far far away.”

“Will your friends not come in search of you?”

“They look-um, yes, they look-um plenty hard. By Joe! Look-um all over. You treat-um us good or our friends find out and—” Van Rijn broke off, looking dismayed, and conferred again with Tolk.

“I believe the Eart’ho wishes to apologize for tactlessness,” explained the Herald dryly.

“It may be a truthful kind of tactlessness,” observed Syranax. “If his friends can, indeed, locate him while he is still alive, much will depend on what kind of treatment he received from us. Eh? The problem is, can they find him that soon? What say, Eart’ho?” He pushed the last question out like a spear.

Van Rijn retreated, lifting his hands as if to ward off a blow. “Help!” he whined. “You help-urn us, take us home, old admiral… honored admiral… we go home and pay-um many many fish.”

T’heonax murmured in his father’s ear: “The truth comes out — not that I haven’t suspected as much already. His friends have no measurable chance of finding him before he starves. If they did, he wouldn’t be begging us for help. He’d be demanding whatever struck his fancy.”

“I would have done that in all events,” said the admiral. “Our friend isn’t very experienced in these matters, eh? Well, it’s good to know how easily truth can be squeezed out of him.”

“So,” said T’heonax contemptuously, not bothering to whisper, “the only problem is, to get some value out of the beasts before they die.”

Sandra’s breath sucked sharply in. Wace grasped her arm, opened his mouth, and caught Van Rijn’s hurried Anglic murmur: “Shut up! Not a word, you bucket head!” Where upon the merchant resumed his timid smile and attitude of straining puzzlement.

“It isn’t right!” exploded Delp. “By the Lodestar; sir, these are guests — not enemies — we can’t just use them!”

“What else would you do?” shrugged T’heonax.

His father blinked and mumbled, as if weighing the arguments for both sides. Something like a spark jumped between Delp and T’heonax. It ran along the ranked lines of Gerunis crew-folk and household troopers as an imperceptible tautening, the barest ripple of muscle and forward slant of weapons.

Van Rijn seemed to get the drift all at once. He recoiled operatically, covered his eyes, then went to his knees before Delp. “No, no!” he screamed. “You take-um us home! You help-um us, we help-um you! You remember say how you help-um us if we help-um you!”

“What’s this?”

It was a wild-animal snarl from T’heonax. He surged forward. “You’ve been bargaining with them, have you?”

“What do you mean?” The executive’s teeth clashed together, centimeters from T’heonax’s nose. His wing-spurs lifted like knives.

“What sort of help were these creatures going to give you?”

“What do you think?” Delp flung the gage into the winds, and crouched waiting.

T’heonax did not quite pick it up. “Some might guess you had ideas of getting rid of certain rivals within the Fleet,” he purred.

In the silence which fell across the raft, Wace could hear how the dragon shapes up in the rigging breathed more swiftly. He could hear the creak of timbers and cables, the slap of waves and the low damp mumble of wind. Almost, he heard obsidian daggers being loosened in their sheaths.

If an unpopular prince finds an excuse to arrest a subordinate whom the commoners trust, there are likely going to be men who will fight. It was not otherwise here on Diomedes.

Syranax broke the explosive quiet. “There’s some kind of misunderstanding,” he said loudly. “Nobody is going to charge anyone with anything on the basis of this wingless creature’s gabble. What’s the fuss about? What could he possibly do for any of us, anyway?”